[Guardian] In a bird strike of a different breed, Byrdie the Rhodesian ridgeback bolted from her crate before her flight could take off.

A man attempts to retrieve the pup after it escaped from its cage at LaGuardia airport in New York City. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A pooch named, appropriately enough, Byrdie, took flight at New York’s LaGuardia airport on Wednesday – but not in the way her owner intended.

The 30lb Rhodesian ridgeback bolted from her crate as she was being loaded onto her Memphis-bound Delta Air flight Wednesday, shutting down all traffic at the bustling hub for 10 minutes.

Authorities tried unsuccessfully to collar the 14-month-old pup, who took off down the tarmac and refused to to be corralled. Desperate Port Authority cops finally pulled the dog’s owner, Austin Varner, off the flight and drove her onto the runway.

“Your dog escaped,” a Delta employee told Varner, according to the New York Post. “We have got her kind of surrounded, but can’t catch her.”